Knowing Lisa? Feminist Analyses of ‘Gender and Entrepreneurship’

Women and Entrepreneurship: A Gender Comparison in Spain

“…According to analysis of fear of failure, women entrepreneurs had significantly more pessimistic views than did male entrepreneurs. As noted in the section on gender comparison (Calás et al, 2007), these differences in fear of failure probably owe to a culture that blames failed women entrepreneurs for having engaged in entrepreneurial activity. Fear, in this case, seems to be due to lack of acceptance of women entrepreneurs in Spanish society, where the success of women entrepreneurs cannot be denied socially but their failure is penalized.…”

“…As mentioned in the previous section, Calás et al (2007) argued that many of capitalist societies' objectives pre-define successful activities whereby instrumental rational values belonging to men dominate. Calás et al were referring to a cultural framework that imposes psychological difficulties for women to engage in business activity.…”

“…Nevertheless, as pointed out by Calás et al (2007), these measures tend to institutionalize men's and women's traditional roles even more profoundly. Hence, from the vision of radical feminism, a change towards reconciling work and family can hinder -or delay -transformation of women's social status.…”

“…Taking a critical view of conventional literature but without alluding to a radical political position, Calás, Smircich and Bourne (2007) argued that liberal feminist thinking obscures the fact that many of capitalist society's objectives pre-define successful activities. Hence, capitalist society propagates the patriarchal order, whereby values of instrumental rationality corresponding to profit or performance dominate to the detriment of interests based on people, their characteristics and their idiosyncrasies.…”

“…Hence, from the vision of radical feminism, a change towards reconciling work and family can hinder -or delay -transformation of women's social status. For Calás et al (2007), recognizing and mitigating differences can in fact help to consolidate them, especially because differences between men and women are not simply socially unjust differences, but also biological differences that can never disappear. As Brush et al (2009) noted, in a fair and balanced world, research would examine the extent to which these differences yield different abilities or different ways of succeeding in business.…”